Drilling data quality improvement and information extraction with case studies

Data analytics is a process of data acquiring, transforming, interpreting, modelling, displaying and storing data with an aim of extracting useful information, so that decision-making, actions executing, events detecting and incidents managing can be handled in an efficient and certain manner. However, data analytics also meets some challenges, for instance, data corruption due to noises, time delays, missing and external disturbances, etc. This paper focuses on data quality improvement to cleanse, improve and interpret the post-well or real-time data to preserve and enhance data features, like accuracy, consistency, reliability and validity. In this study, laboratory data and field data are used to illustrate data issues and show data quality improvements with using different data processing methods. Case study clearly demonstrates that the proper data quality management process and information extraction methods are essential to carry out an intelligent digitalization in oil and gas industry.publishedVersio

Morphological Variation of Vegetative Phase among Ma Wee (Oryza sativa L.) Accessions during Non-Inductive Growing Season for Flowering

Ma wee (Oryza sativa L.) had been a popular traditional rice in the past due to desirableagronomic traits for adverse environments. Ma wee accessions (Accns) are known to bephotoperiod sensitive for flowering initiation which flower during Maha (short day) season.Understanding morphological variation of Ma wee is useful in future analysis for geneticdiversity. Thirty nine Accns of Ma wee varieties used for the present study with the objectiveof determining variation of morphological responses when Accns remained in vegetativephase under non-inductive photoperiod for flower initiation at 210 days after sowing. Thirtynine Accns from plant genetic resources center, Sri Lanka were grown in Kamburupitiya withfour replicates in a completely randomised design at the end of Maha season in 2013/2014.Quantitative characters of plant height (PH), total tiller number (TTN), total leaf number(TLN), culm number (CN) and ligules length (LL) and qualitative characters of ligule color(LC), ligule shape (LS), internode color (IC), culm strength (CS) were recorded. None of the39 Accns flowered by 210 days and PH, TTN, TLN, CN, and LL varied from 87.5±1.61 cm,2±0.37, 8±0.84, 2±0.43, 1.8±0.46 cm to 199±1.36 cm, 22±2.09, 136±2.20, 24±2.03 and4.18±0.25 cm respectively. The lowest PH, TTN, TLN, and CN were recorded from Accn6253. Except for Accn 6253, rests 38 Accns were over 1 m in PH.Qualitative characters varied among clusters without any uniformity for a given cluster. CSvaried among Accns from weak, intermediate to strong. LC and IC varied from green towhite and green to yellow respectively. Acute to acuminate and two cleft LS were alsoobserved. Principal Component Analysis followed by Cluster Analysis was performed usingdata from quantitative characters. First two of PCs explained over 80% of total morphologicalvariations. The first PC represented the PH, TTN, TLN and CN whereas PC2 represented theLL. Eight clusters were obtained at rescaled distance five in the dendogram. Variation amongAccns within clusters for qualitative characters may be an indication of genetic diversity.Keywords: Ma wee, Morphological variation, Vegetative phas

Determination of Candidate Breeding Resource from Sri Lankan Traditional Rice Mudukiri Al

Most of the traditional rice varieties conserved at Plant Genetic Resources Centre, Sri Lanka,possess more than one accession. Determination of morphological variation and yieldpotential among accession within same variety would be useful for breeding new varietiesand farmer introductions. Six accessions of Mudukiri Al variety were selected for this study.The objective of this study was to determine the morphological variation among accessionsof Mudukiri Al for selecting candidates for future breeding. Six accessions obtained from thePlant Genetics Resources Centre, Sri Lanka, were grown in Kamburupitiya with threereplicates in a completely randomised design from November 2013. Days to fifth leaf (DFL),seedling height at fifth leaf (SHT), leaf area of fifth leaf (LA), days to flowering (DF), plantheight at flowering (PH), culm number at flowering (CN), total number of panicles (PN),number of grains per first panicle (GN), grain length (GL) and width (GW) were recordedwhich varied from 51 to 59 days, 63.8 to 80.3 cm, 6.5 to 44.4 cm2, 86 to 102 days, 112.7 to148.6 cm, 16 to 38, 7 to 29, 103 to 255, 0.7 to 0.9 cm and 0.3 to 0.4 cm respectively.Accession 4,144 produced significantly higher GN of 255 while accession 3,970, 4,145 and3,758 produced 184, 160 and 166 respectively. Accessions 3,970 and 5,536 were with shortawns. A positive correlation between DFL and PH (0.870) had been observed. Higher GNand the highest CN (38) would be favourable for selecting accession 4,144 as a candidatebreeding resource.Keywords: Mudukiri Al, Morphological variation, Breeding resourc

Assessment of costs and benefits of green retrofit technologies: Case study of hotel buildings in Sri Lanka

With the rising impact of greenhouse gas emissions, resource depletion, and the global interest in sustainability advancements within all sectors, construction industry practitioners are also interested in incorporating sustainable features and practices into their buildings. Nevertheless, most of the commercial buildings in Sri Lanka had been constructed during the unprecedented urbanization between 1995 and 2010, thus, before sustainable concepts became more prominent. Therefore, existing buildings in Sri Lanka is experiencing ever-increasing energy consumption, resulting in higher utility costs, with which green retrofitting has become imperative, notably in hotel buildings. This study, therefore, conducted an economic evaluation of three existing hotel buildings to establish an account of the cost implications and saving potentials of different green retrofit technologies. The data collected through document reviews and site visits were analysed using net present value and simple payback period calculations. Although number of retrofitting technologies have been incorporated in the selected buildings, more weight has been given to incorporating technologies to achieve energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality. Considering the financial viability, all the implemented green retrofits have a positive return on investment and less than ten years of payback period, except LED televisions. Amongst the implemented retrofits, biomass boilers, energy-efficient chillers, and solar PV systems have the highest energy-saving efficiency, followed by VFDs and LED lighting, while LED televisions have the lowest. The study's findings contribute to industry practitioners identifying the appropriate green retrofits based on the cost implications and savings potential and enhancing the sustainability of the built environments by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and depletion of natural resources

Modelling Interrelationships of the Factors Impeding Community Engagement in Risk-Sensitive Urban Planning: Evidence from Sri Lanka

During the last two decades, global disasters have impacted over 5.2 billion people, with economic losses exceeding USD 2.97 trillion. This underscores the critical need for inclusive risk-sensitive urban planning (RSUP) that integrates community insights. Community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) has demonstrated a potential reduction of up to 40% in mortality rates during disasters and cost savings in disaster response and recovery. However, research has shown that only 20% felt they are involved in decisions related to neighborhood planning, despite communities’ lived experience in surviving local hazards. This highlights a gap where practitioners dominate the development of mitigation and development plans, sidelining local perspectives. Using Sri Lanka as a case study, this study investigated the barriers to effective community participation in the decision-making of RSUP and thereby developed an interpretive logic model to establish an understanding of why they occur and how each barrier is interlinked. The data gathered from a sample of 44 experts and community representatives revealed 19 factors that impede community inclusion in the decision-making of RSUP in Sri Lanka. The Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (TISM) analysis adopted identified that the absence of legal provisions for inclusive development, political dynamics, and corruption are the most significant barriers. The Matrix Impact of Cross Multiplication Applied to Classification (MICMAC) further revealed that fewer financial provisions and the absence of an institutional framework for community engagement are the linking barriers to the other 17 barriers. This study not only extends the theoretical debate on barriers to community engagement for risk-responsive and equitable development but also helps urban planners, disaster management practitioners, and strategy policymakers focus on critical areas that need major reforms

Extracellular microRNAs in human circulation are associated with miRISC complexes that are accessible to anti-AGO2 antibody and can bind target mimic oligonucleotides

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) function cell-intrinsically to regulate gene expression by base-pairing to complementary mRNA targets while in association with Argonaute, the effector protein of the miRNA-mediated silencing complex (miRISC). A relatively dilute population of miRNAs can be found extracellularly in body fluids such as human blood plasma and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The remarkable stability of circulating miRNAs in such harsh extracellular environments can be attributed to their association with protective macromolecular complexes, including extracellular vesicles (EVs), proteins such as Argonaut 2 (AGO2), or high-density lipoproteins. The precise origins and the potential biological significance of various forms of miRNA-containing extracellular complexes are poorly understood. It is also not known whether extracellular miRNAs in their native state may retain the capacity for miRISC-mediated target RNA binding. To explore the potential functionality of circulating extracellular miRNAs, we comprehensively investigated the association between circulating miRNAs and the miRISC Argonaute AGO2. Using AGO2 immunoprecipitation (IP) followed by small-RNA sequencing, we find that miRNAs in circulation are primarily associated with antibody-accessible miRISC/AGO2 complexes. Moreover, we show that circulating miRNAs can base-pair with a target mimic in a seed-based manner, and that the target-bound AGO2 can be recovered from blood plasma in an approximately 1:1 ratio with the respective miRNA. Our findings suggest that miRNAs in circulation are largely contained in functional miRISC/AGO2 complexes under normal physiological conditions. However, we find that, in human CSF, the assortment of certain extracellular miRNAs into free miRISC/AGO2 complexes can be affected by pathological conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Mapping participatory methods in the urban development process : a systematic review and case-based evidence analysis

Despite the fact that vulnerable communities are the most affected by unplanned cities, considerably less attention has been given to involving them in urban development in order to ensure equitable outcomes. In this regard, there is an urgent need for governments to introduce and enforce processes that allow citizens, including vulnerable communities, to participate in development planning and policymaking. However, at present, there is a lack of guidance for practitioners regarding the definition of a clear purpose of community engagement and the selection of appropriate participatory methods to fulfil the set purpose. This study provides a thorough account of the participatory methods that can be used to achieve various engagement goals throughout the urban development process. This structured literature review used 71 reports published from 2000 to 2020. The review revealed 34 participatory methods, wherein most of the methods are devoted to informing, consulting and involving communities, whilst only a few methods are available for interactive public participation that supports true collaboration and empowerment. The study identified 12 purposes of community engagement in urban development, and mapped the 34 participatory methods for achieving them. The analysed case studies showed that the current community engagement practices are mainly in the pre-design and briefing stages of the urban development processes, and that most projects are aiming to achieve the ‘inform’ and ‘consult’ levels of engagement, with a few aiming to achieve the ‘involve’ and ‘collaborate’ levels. This study shows that community engagement is often overlooked during the professional design, development and post-development phases. The paper presents an onion model which can be used by practitioners to choose appropriate participatory methods based on the intended urban development phase, the engagement level and the purpose of the community engagement

Development of upgradable mobile platform for smart applications

The research related to this paper is focused on developing a low cost autonomous robotic platform for domestic use which can be upgraded to perform multiple tasks. As the first step of it, we present here a testing prototype focusing on navigation and localization. Here the construction of the prototype is discussed where an overview of the platform is given. The driving mechanism and navigation and localization methodology is explained in details with the algorithms used. Finally the paper presents the test results generated through the testing platform including the map generated by the robot

Factors influencing acceptance or rejection regarding being the host community for post-disaster resettlements in developing countries

Post-disaster relocations have both positive and negative impacts on host communities. Receiving the host community’s willingness to host the new community is essential to ensure integration and the sustainability of the new resettlement. This “willingness” is influenced by a variety of factors which have not been adequately studied by researchers and policymakers. This study, therefore, investigates the latent variables influencing a host community's decision to accept or reject disaster-induced resettlements. The study employed a survey approach utilising a questionnaire that contained 70 factors influencing host communities' perspectives on resettlements. A randomly selected 250 respondents from host communities were asked to indicate the factors that influence their level of agreement to be the host for displaced parties based on a 1-5 Likert-scale. The responses were analysed using the factor analysis: principal component analysis (PCA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) respectively. The PCA extracted 16 components which influence a host community’s decision to accept/reject displaced communities (which account for nearly 70% of the total variance). The three most significant components were the impact on livelihoods and access to resources (total variance of 13%), political power and human wellbeing (9%), access to public services and social security (7%). The EFA revealed 58 sub-latent variables consisting of a majority of rejection factors (90%) with very few influences to accept displaced communities. The study’s findings can be used by authorities and policymakers who design and implement post-disaster relocation programmes in understanding a host community’s viewpoints and their involvement in making the resettlements successful and sustainable

Modelling of red blood cell morphological and deformability changes during in-vitro storage

© 2020 by the authors. Storage lesion is a critical issue facing transfusion treatments, and it adversely affects the quality and viability of stored red blood cells (RBCs). RBC deformability is a key indicator of cell health. Deformability measurements of each RBC unit are a key challenge in transfusion medicine research and clinical haematology. In this paper, a numerical study, inspired from the previous research for RBC deformability and morphology predictions, is conducted for the first time, to investigate the deformability and morphology characteristics of RBCs undergoing storage lesion. This study investigates the evolution of the cell shape factor, elongation index and membrane spicule details, where applicable, of discocyte, echinocyte I, echinocyte II, echinocyte III and sphero-echinocyte morphologies during 42 days of in-vitro storage at 4 °C in saline-adenine-glucose-mannitol (SAGM). Computer simulations were performed to investigate the influence of storage lesion-induced membrane structural defects on cell deformability and its recoverability during optical tweezers stretching deformations. The predicted morphology and deformability indicate decreasing quality and viability of stored RBCs undergoing storage lesion. The loss of membrane structural integrity due to the storage lesion further degrades the cell deformability and recoverability during mechanical deformations. This numerical approach provides a potential framework to study the RBC deformation characteristics under varying pathophysiological conditions for better diagnostics and treatments